


don't give me time, don't give me space

by keithyourpal



Series: shiro/adam + shiro/keith [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Abduction, Break Up, Canon Compliant, Canon Gay Character, Chronic Illness, Falling In Love, First Love, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Kerberos Mission, Pre-Kerberos Mission
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-16 04:45:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15429315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keithyourpal/pseuds/keithyourpal
Summary: It feels so strange to fall in love.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to go ahead and post the first chapter of this fic since I finished it the same time I finished the last chapter of First Love. This will partly be Shiro's POV of the events from that fic, but will also follow more of what happens after the Kerberos mission. As such, it will be longer and updates won't be as quick as First Love's were.
> 
> Shiro as a character has been really important to me since s1. I had a lot of rough stuff happening in my life the summer that VLD came out, so I'm drawing on a bit of that experience here. Thanks for reading.

  


  
  
_“And I don't really mean what I say_  
_But if I did then would you stay?“_  
  


  


  


“When were you going to tell me?”

Shiro folds his hands in his lap and watches Adam pace in front of the couch, his bare feet slapping on the floor with every step. Adam pivots, lurching toward the counter, where he fumbles with the box of teabags and the electric kettle, muttering wildly as he almost drops it. He gets two mugs down from the cupboard and resumes his pacing, forgetting that the teabags are still in his hand.

“I just did,” Shiro says wearily, sinking further into the couch. He’s been trying to prepare himself for this conversation for months by this point; of course, Adam has no way of knowing that.

“Two years!” Adam says, halting in front of him. His glasses are tucked over the collar of his shirt, leaving his face completely open, with nothing to hide his fear behind. It’s hard to meet his eyes. “We’ve been friends for almost _two years_! Roommates, even! Flight partners! How could you--how could I--?”

He gives a long, drawn out groan. “How could I not notice?”

“Don’t blame yourself, Adam,” Shiro says sharply. “You couldn’t when I didn’t want you to.”

Shiro’s spent most of his life trying to hide what hurts him, not wanting people to see him as unfortunate or incapable. The monitor around his wrist has been a reminder of what he hates about himself for so long; it was hard enough learning to accept his situation and make the most of it, especially when there are too many days when it all feels pointless. 

He doesn’t want other people to doubt him. He doesn’t want _Adam_ to doubt him.

Adam clenches his fists, blinking as he notices the teabags, and stomps back to the counter. He stays there, not saying anything until the kettle begins to whistle. When he comes back, he hands Shiro a mug and throws himself down on the other end of the couch.

The tea smells like hibiscus. Shiro’s favorite. He sets his mug down on the coffee table; his stomach churns too much to even think about drinking it. Adam takes a huge gulp from his own mug, spilling it down the corner of his mouth. 

“How long?

“How long I’ve had it?” Shiro forces himself to meet Adam’s gaze, to keep his face still. “Or how long I have left?”

Adam closes his eyes. His mouth opens, closes, and his lips tighten. When he speaks again he definitely sounds like he’s about to cry, and that was always the hardest part of this conversation whenever Shiro ran it through his head, no matter how many times he practiced. “How long . . . do you have left?”

“I don’t know. A few years. Maybe ten, if I’m lucky.” Shiro doesn’t mention that it’s been almost three years since his diagnosis. He’s already past the point when most people would be dead or close to it. Every day when he wakes up, he wonders how long this back-and-forth of wanting to keep fighting and wanting it to just end already will go on.

There are periods when he loves his life. Joining the Garrison was the best thing he ever chose to do, considering he almost decided not to, afraid that having too little time would put a damper on the dream he’s had since he was a child.

And then there are periods when he regrets it, because the thought of not being able to fly with Adam anymore, not being able to go to space one day, is eating away at him, and it feels like his happiness is only a lie he’s force feeding himself--because admitting that he’s scared would make him want to give up.

Adam sets a hand on his. His skin is hot from the mug. Shiro can see the scar of a chemical burn across his knuckles from a lab accident last year; a careless mistake that could have cost him so much more than an ugly mitt of bandages, graffitied by get-well-soons and funny drawings from their classmates.

“I don’t know what to do,” Adam whispers. “I just know that I can’t lose you.”

  


\-----  


  


At his next checkup, the doctor is pleased to report that Shiro’s condition hasn’t worsened since his last visit. There have been appointments like this before, when the weakness in his muscles stops progressing for a while and he can almost feel normal again. He still can’t bring himself to hope, because it always starts again eventually, and the cycle is exhausting.

But Adam looks so relieved that he keeps his doubts to himself.

Part of why Shiro wanted to keep his condition a secret is because he knew it would be like this. He can see it on Adam’s face in class, whenever his mind wanders from the lecture and he looks over at Shiro, his eyes pained. He’d rather shoulder the pain alone than see someone else hurt because of him.

“So your watch,” Adam says under his breath in study hall that evening. “It’s not a watch after all?”

Shiro only replies with a curt shake of his head, keeping his eyes focused on his assignment. A little closer inspection would reveal it's nothing like a watch, so he keeps it hidden whenever possible. He can't take it off--not in the shower, not when he sleeps, and certainly not in the air. The band is the main thing that's kept him well enough to stay in a military academy for this long, and if he could he'd wrench it off and throw it out in the desert.

Adam shuts his tablet off. “All this time,” he mutters as he packs his bag, dropping his stylus and his earbuds, “all this _time_ , I never--”

Shiro grabs hold of his wrist when he makes to stand up, aware of how nearby students are watching and listening to the commotion. Adam pulls away and leaves, ignoring when the instructor asks where he’s going.

“What was that about?" 

"Dunno. I’ve never seen them fight before.” 

He rests his chin in his hand, blocks out the gossip, and tries to concentrate on his chemistry homework.

  


\-----  


  


The day after they graduate, he asks Adam out over dinner. Adam cusses and stomps off to the restroom. Other restaurant patrons watch him go before looking curiously at Shiro, who’s too confused to be embarrassed. At a loss, he takes another bite of his fajita.

When Adam comes back five minutes later, he downs the rest of Shiro’s beer and slouches back on his side of the booth. His foot kicks up against one of Shiro’s legs.

“What?” Shiro asks indignantly, because for all his hangups and self-doubt he knows when he’s being hit on, and Adam has spent the better part of their senior year flirting for the entire Garrison to see. When Shiro went on a training mission to the moon he could still see how obvious Adam was being from space.

“I thought we were already--y’know,” Adam says through his hands, his fingers pushing up his glasses.

Shiro gapes. “Well, that’s news to me. What made you think that?”

“I dunno, Lieutenant Shirogane, I thought it was obvious when I started packing you lunches and you told me the notes I left in them were cute. People mash our names together and call us by a couple name like we’re celebrities. You’re _handsy_. And--” Adam glares at him from between his fingers, pointing at his own drink accusingly, “--you bought me a michelada. You really know how to lead a guy on!”

Shiro almost chokes laughing. “Don’t blame this on _me_.”

“You’re the worst,” Adam grumbles, raking a fork through his food.

“So was that a yes or a no?”

“Yes! Of course! Stop asking!”

Shiro really does seem to be the last one in the know, because when they decide to keep rooming together after graduating, someone brings a particularly inappropriate care package to their housewarming party that garners wolf whistles and hollers of “Fucking finally!” and “You did it, Novak!”

Shiro’s ears burn as their friends pat him on the back while Adam joins their toast, winking at him from across the room. It feels so strange to fall in love.

  


\-----  


  


The box sits on their bedside table for a week until one night Adam caves in and digs through it, dumping the contents on his side of the bed. “Seriously, guys?” he mutters, holding up a box of condoms wrapped in purple ribbon. “This is so wrong. These are way too big.”

“ _That’s_ what you’re worried about?” Shiro surveys the little pile--the bottle of lube, the fuzzy blindfold, what looks like a vibrator shaped like a space shuttle--and has a very different set of concerns about the matter. Namely, that their friends should mind their own business, or at least have included the receipt.

Adam straddles him, grinning as Shiro slides his glasses off. “Yours or mine, big guy?”

“Mine,” Shiro grunts. “That’s my size.”

Adam sits bolt upright, staring down incredulously at Shiro, who simply tears a condom off the roll.

  


\-----  


  


Sex makes him more nervous than hurtling through the atmosphere, or floating in a space station, or any of the other larger-than-life stunts that feel like second nature at the Garrison. He hates his body.

“Hey,” Adam whispers when Shiro freezes, feeling his breath catch in his throat when he pushes in, “it’s okay. We don’t have to rush. I love you, no matter what.”


	2. Chapter 2

Iverson oversees his physical when Commander Holt requests Shiro to be the pilot for a mission he’s planning to Metis, one of the moons of Jupiter. It’s farther than any mission Shiro has gone on in space, and few other Garrison personnel have been out that far. He knew as soon as Commander Holt asked him that the top brass wouldn’t let him go without some resistance.

Iverson has few admirers among the cadets at the Garrison; militant strictness is unpopular, seen as paranoid and unnecessary during peacetime, but Shiro has always at least appreciated his discipline, if nothing else.

The device around his wrist acts as a monitor and a regulator, responding to his muscle spasms as they happen. Without it, Shiro knows he wouldn’t even be given the chance to prove he’s fit for the mission in the first place. 

And that’s the catch--the only reason he’s been afforded such expensive, effective means of treatment is because he’s _useful_. Shiro tries not to hold his breath bated as the medic takes his vitals, because he knows that one day the readings will be too poor to justify how costly it is to keep him here. For now at least, he’s in the clear.

“Son,” Iverson says as he pulls his jacket back on, “you are the best damn pilot the Garrison has ever seen. But that’s not the only thing you’re capable of.”

“Thank you, sir, but it’s the only thing I want to do.” Shiro buttons up with stiff fingers.

Iverson shakes his head slightly. “I just don’t want to see your career cut too short because you push yourself so much.”

“Sir.”

At the next meeting with Commander Holt, Iverson says, clearly exasperated, “I won’t stop him from going if he wants to, but I strongly advise against it.”

“He’s the best man for the job,” Commander Holt replies firmly. “He has the experience and the skill. Out of any other pilot here, I trust him the most.”

  


\-----

  


  


The Metis mission nearly costs him his life.

  


\-----

  


  


The four-month-long flight out there goes without a hitch. Their shuttle is strangely empty with just three people, a change from the more populated training missions he’s taken to Luna and Mars before.

More is at stake here, from what they’ll collect as well as what the Garrison stands to lose if anything goes wrong. Shiro is all too aware that he’s piloting a craft worth more money than he could ever dream of making in his entire life.

Near the end of their first week into the mission, Commander Holt’s voice comes over the intercom. “Easy, Shiro.” He chuckles. “Let the auto-pilot do its job for a bit. Come join us so we can play Spades.”

Shiro lets go of the controls with a heavy sigh, frowning as he flexes his hands. He must be spending too much time in the pilot’s seat after all, because there’s a pain coursing through his arms up into his chest. He joins Commander Holt and Second Officer Perez in the canteen, where they have a deck of cards laid out. Perez shuffles the deck, grinning as Shiro sits across from her.

“They told me you worked hard,” she says as she deals the cards, “but they never told me you don’t sleep!”

“Yeah, well, I’ve learned to live without.” He takes his cards and smiles despite the continued throbbing in his hands.

Commander Holt’s face drops slightly as he looks at his cards. “Perez, next time _I’m_ shuffling,” he grumbles.

As the weeks go on, the pain and stiffness in Shiro’s hands spreads up his arms and into his chest, going from a dull ache to an excruciating burning that makes it hard to move. Doing his daily exercise routine is excruciating. By the time they reach the asteroid belt, the pain has crept up his throat, restricting his breathing. He manages to wake up Commander Holt and Perez with his choking.

Now Commander Holt sits on the bunk opposite him, holding up the medical scanner in front of Shiro’s chest. His face is grim as he takes in the readings.

“Breathe in, Shiro,” he says, “we’ll get through this. Perez, I think we’ll need the IV kit.”

“On it.” She ducks out the door and down the hall. 

Shiro told Commander Holt right away when the pain started all those months ago. It was only in the past few days that his symptoms became severe enough that Commander Holt gently suggested that Perez also deserved to know what was wrong.

She was floored, and that was exactly why Shiro hadn’t wanted to tell her. So many people see him as some kind of legend. Learning he was sick goes against the idea--she doesn’t know what to make of him now. It isn’t her fault, anymore than being sick is Shiro’s. 

He just hates that he can’t at least bear the pain in privacy, instead of having her set up an IV with shaking hands while Commander Holt directs her. Shiro settles on his back on his own bunk and closes his eyes, so at least he won’t have to look at the two of them hovering.

“Will this really help?” Perez asks as she wraps the tourniquet around his arm.

“Yeah,” Shiro murmurs. “Don’t worry about the asteroid belt. The autopilot will get us through.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about! Why are you even out here when you’re this sick?”

“Cynthia,” Commander Holt interjects gently, “let’s get the IV set up first, then you and I can talk while Shiro rests. Okay?”

“Yes, sir. Sorry.”

“Don’t be. Now, hand me the saline flush, if you will.”

Shiro stays quiet as they work. Once the needle is in and the IV bag is hung up, Commander Holt sets a hand on his shoulder for a wordless moment, then he and Perez leave the barracks. Shiro opens his eyes. He can’t even feel the needle.

When he wakes up the next day with muscle spasms that make him unable to sit up, Commander Holt adjusts his medication and spoon feeds him some pudding that tastes like dirt. It feels more like a father taking care of a child than a superior looking after one of his officers, and as humiliating as it is, Shiro is also so grateful for Commander Holt’s unwavering kindness.

“How is Perez?” Shiro asks a few days later, when his voice comes back. The constriction in his chest and throat is starting to abate, and he hopes that the medication and the stimulation from his wrist band will be enough to get him back in the pilot’s seat by the end of the week.

“She’s keeping it together. Worried about you, of course. We’re gonna be fine.” Commander Holt smiles. “And so are you.”

Slowly, Shiro recovers enough to resume a light exercise routine. Perez joins him, keeping an eye while he struggles.

“Hey. Don’t push yourself,” she says, tossing him a towel when he finishes.

Commander Holt moves seats when Shiro joins him in the cockpit. They’re about halfway through the asteroid belt now, and will still be flying through it for weeks to come. The distance between asteroids is so great that they don’t run much risk of hitting anything, but Shiro still feels best when he’s at the controls.

“I had to report your condition to the Garrison,” Commander Holt says as he adjusts his seat harness. 

“I know.”

“You can do this.”

“I know.”

Commander Holt pats his shoulder vigorously. “Attaboy.”

Shiro feels disembodied, almost as if he’s on autopilot himself. Flying the ship so far hasn’t been demanding yet, and even once they get through the asteroid belts there are still hundreds of millions of kilometers to go until they reach Jupiter. 

The descent to Metis will be the first time his skills will be crucially needed since they launched, and he’s honestly not sure if he can do it. But Commander Holt believes in him, and Perez doesn’t need to lose any more faith in him on her first mission beyond Mars, so he stays in the pilot’s seat for a few hours and pushes through.

At the end of every week they’re allowed to video call their families. They take turns giving updates, rotating who gets to go first. Shiro goes last this time, offering to let Perez go before him. He stuffs his mouth full of rehydrated mac and cheese as Commander Holt returns to the commissary and sits across from him heavily, taking off his glasses.

“Katie was sent to the principal’s office,” he reports, smiling in spite of himself. “My wife says she punched a kid out for calling her a nerd.”

“Smart kid,” Shiro says.

“Oh, absolutely. But the punching part, not so much. She and Matt aren’t really big into sports, so there isn’t really any, ah, recreational way for her to channel some of that spirit.”

“If she joins the Garrison, she’ll learn. I did.”

They don’t say much else while he finishes his food and then waits for Perez to finish. She takes longer than usual, and by the time she comes to the commissary Commander Holt as fallen asleep in his chair.

Shiro sits down in front of the computer uncomfortably and waits for the call to connect. Adam’s face flickers into view, sunken-eyed and with unkempt hair. He would have been informed as soon as Commander Holt made his report.

“Hey,” Shiro says, because what else can he say?

“Don’t,” Adam says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Just don’t, okay?”

“I’m doing better. By the time we reach the moon I’ll be fine.” He glances at his wrist. His readings seem to back up his statements, so he continues, “We’re in the asteroid belt right now. It’ll take us just as long to get from here to Jupiter as from Earth to here. That’s plenty of time for me to heal.”

“What exactly happened?”

“Muscle spasms in my arms and chest. No big deal. For me, I mean,” he adds hastily when Adam glares. “Baby, there’s nothing you or I can do about it right now. We can’t turn around and come back to Earth. We’re over halfway there.”

“I know,” Adam says, sounding just as helpless as he is frustrated. “And that’s what I hate about all this, Takashi. I hate that you aren’t here so I can help you.”

“There isn’t any helping this,” Shiro says, “just working around it.”

Adam’s eyes soften. “Promise me you’ll let the autopilot do most of the work until you reach the moon. I know how you are.”

“I will,” Shiro says.

Adam leans back in his chair. He has a stress squeezie in one hand, Shiro notices, shaped like a teddy bear. The extensor muscles in his arm bulge out as he squishes it and releases, over and over. “When you get back, my folks want to have you over for dinner one night,” he says. “Nothing big. I told them I’d ask.”

Shiro blinks. He knows Adam has parents, in the same way he knows most people do, unlike him. He never met any of his ex-boyfriends’ families in the past, never had the idea even come up. This is . . . this is new.

“You don’t have to,” Adam says quickly, his voice anxious, and Shiro knows then that his reaction is not what Adam wanted. And that feels weird. Why is this so weird?

“No, no, I’d love to,” Shiro says. “Believe me, after all this space food I’d love to have dinner with them.”

Adam’s face lights up, and it makes the past few months of pain and MREs all worth it.“Cool, I’ll let them know. And I’m gonna let you go, so get some rest, okay?”

“Yeah. See you next week. Love you.”

After the call ends Shiro remains in front of the computer, his foot tapping nervously. It’s not that he doesn’t want to meet Adam’s parents, and it’s not even that he’s afraid of what they’ll think of him. 

He just . . . doesn’t know what he can say if they ask anything about his long-term plans, like if they want to go on family vacations or have kids someday. _No, sorry, I’ll probably be dead in five years_. And that, he realizes with a rush of bile, is the fear that’s been gnawing away inside of him as he and Adam grew more serious. 

What kind of parent would want someone like him dating their son?

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to have this fic done before s7 comes out so fingers crossed that some miracle will still let me accomplish that goal, screams. Next chapter will have Keith! Thanks for reading :)


	3. Chapter 3

The last clear thing he remembers is holding the drill while Commander Holt and Perez take samples from the surface of the moon. Beyond that, faint impressions swim in and out of mind, of a burning pain in his upper thigh that creeps up through his abdomen. Needles and wires in his body. Flashes of orange light that cut through the darkness. Faint voices in his head that speak over each other in a cacophony.

He remembers a dizzying rush of numbness and a bone-deep chill that suffocates him like the paralysis in his throat.

_“Shiro, hold on.”_.

_“Reporting in--”_.

_“Perez, hold him down!”_.

_“What do we do?”_.

He remembers his name. _Shiro, Shiro, Shiro_.

Then, _Takashi_. 

Then, nothing.

 

  
  
  


 

He wakes up in darkness on a Garrison hospital bed. Next to the window, where a distant light filters in through the blinds, Adam slouches in a chair. His glasses slide incrementally down the bridge of his nose as he sleeps, chest rising and falling underneath the jacket he uses as a makeshift blanket. A vase of wilting flowers sits on the nightstand, along with a messy stack of get well cards and Adam’s datapad.

Shiro’s head feels so heavy. He can’t turn to look around the rest of the room so he continues to look at Adam, struggling to wake up, to figure out how he got here.

“Adam?” he says. His voice comes out thin and raspy.

All he gets in response is a snore, and the sound is comforting. It’s been a long time since he heard it, Shiro realizes, frowning, and then all of it--the mission to Metis, the onslaught of spasms in the asteroid belt, and the abrupt end of his recall--comes together. Entire months are lost to him, and even when he concentrates until he begins to sweat, he can’t find them again.

He tries to stretch out some of the stiffness in his joints and notes with a cold, sinking feeling in his stomach that he can’t feel his legs. The aches and the spasms have come and gone for years. This total loss of sensation is new. He tries to remain calm and can’t, too overcome with the thought that this time, the change in his body might be permanent. 

What the hell happened to him on Metis?

“Adam,” he whispers hoarsely, reaching out his hand, grasping at the darkness, “Adam, wake up. I need you, please. _Adam--”_

Adam stirs, glasses falling off as he jerks awake.

“ _I can’t feel my legs_.”

He hears Adam’s breath go out of him in a short, ragged whoosh.

“Okay,” he says, “okay. I’ll call the nurse. Takashi, it’s okay. I’m here.”

  


\------

  


Iverson grounds him from any missions or training excursions for the foreseeable future.

“You made it to Mars in cold storage,” he says, his arms held tight behind his back. “Commander Holt made the decision to cryogenically freeze you after your condition worsened not long after departing Metis. You spent a week in intensive care on our Mars base before they would let us transfer you here.”

Shiro gazes down to the other end of the hospital bed, where his unresponsive feet stick up under the sheet like little headstones. The paralysis is temporary, the doctor told him. How long “temporary” may be is anyone’s guess.

“I’ll see about putting you on to work on the ground, maybe recruitment duty, if you recover,” Iverson goes on. At least he isn’t consoling about it. The last thing Shiro wants right now is pity.

Iverson’s good eye bores into him, steadfast and level. “I’ll be glad to have you back, Lieutenant Shirogane. So for your own sake, you need to focus on your recovery.”

“Yes, sir. I will.”

In the end, Shiro meets Adam’s parents in that hospital room. His mother has his eyes and nose, his father his strong shoulders and dimples. They bring a few small containers of homemade buckwheat kasha as a gift, the majority of which Shiro ends up eating on his own, too hungry to stop himself.

“It’s so good to finally meet you, Shiro,” Mrs. Novak says, smiling. “When Adam started telling us about Takashi this, Takashi that all those years ago, I knew you must be pretty special.”

“ _Mom_ ,” Adam groans. “He’s trying to recover. Quit being gross.”

“Well, you don’t become the youngest pilot to lead a space mission without being a cut above the rest of us, now, do you?” Mr. Novak says.

Shiro licks his thumb and wipes a stray bit of food from the side of his mouth. Being complimented in a professional setting is easy to respond to--you say thank you and move on. In a personal setting it’s more embarrassing, and he’s not sure what to say.

“So,” Mr. Novak says, oblivious to the death glare Adam shoots him from across Shiro’s bed, “what do your parents do?”

“My grandfather raised me. It’s okay,” he says, holding up a hand when Mr. Novak flinches, recognizing Adam’s habit of blaming himself too hard over little things. “He was an aircraft mechanic. Taught me everything he knew.”

“I’m sure he’d be proud of you, Shiro,” Mr. Novak replies gruffly. “I know we are.”

Shiro feels himself blush all the way to the tips of his ears. The Novaks stay for about an hour before having to head out, leaving Shiro with well wishes and Adam with an even redder face than Shiro.

“I knew they’d be embarrassing, but sheesh!” Adam collapses dramatically onto the bed next to Shiro.

“They were nice,” Shiro says. “This just . . . wasn’t the way I wanted to meet them.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Adam looks tired, and thinner in the face. Shiro takes his glasses off and sets them on the nightstand. They doze together for a couple of hours until the nurse rouses them, gently reminding Adam that visiting hours are over.

The next month goes on like that, a routine of physical therapy and tests to have his wrist monitor replaced, Adam visiting in the evenings looking more and more tired but refusing to acknowledge it.

The day Shiro is released from the hospital, it feels good to be back in his own clothes, and yet strange because he’s not in his uniform, just jeans and a loose button up shirt. Even though the feeling in his legs has returned walking normally is still difficult. He leans on Adam for support as they head toward the car.

“So you’re gonna be off base for a while,” Adam says over dinner. They’re back at the restaurant where Shiro first asked him out after graduation. “Going around to schools. That kind of thing?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. It’ll be good for you. And you won’t be too far.”

  


\------

  


Recruiting is honestly more enjoyable than Shiro thinks it will be. He grew up without siblings or neighbors the same age as him, hanging around his grandpa’s employees for most of his formative years. 

The kids are bright-eyed and eager, sharing his excitement for space exploration, for the vast unknown of the universe. They get him. Many of them just think he’s cool because of his reputation, true, but with every class that goes through the simulation test he can see who has the drive and potential to join the Garrison.

There are plenty of kids who’ve been raised with the Garrison as a career goal in mind. There are plenty of kids who think the simulation is a fun break from class. And then there are a few, just a precious few kids who have a real innate skill, a gift, that’s buried underneath shyness or anger or a lack of faith from the adults in their life.

Like Keith. Keith, the scrappy little outcast who outshines everyone else in his class, who steals Shiro’s car in a way that Shiro can only be impressed by. Everyone thinks he’s nuts. He thinks meeting Keith is one of the best things that Garrison has done for him.

At the detention center, Keith’s foster father warns Shiro against “rewarding bad behaviour.” He says that Keith has had second chances and third chances and nothing ever changes. That Keith will always be a troublemaker.

And when Keith slacks off in class and in the simulator, not focusing his skills, it’s easy to see why people brush him off. It’s easy, and that’s why Shiro refuses to see Keith the way everyone says he should, because it’s hard as fuck to keep going when people already decide who you are or what you should be.

Most of the personnel think Shiro’s interest in Keith goes beyond extra tutoring; at the meeting he’s called into after Keith knocks James Griffin out, Commander Fritz says Shiro needs to separate his personal issues from his job. 

Commander Richards takes it further and says he should stop trying to live vicariously through his students. Shiro has never before been so overcome by pure, blinding hatred. Only Commander Holt’s presence is enough to make him hold his tongue and stay in line. Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.

He wouldn’t say he sees himself in Keith--more like, he sees Keith’s potential to do better, be greater, if only someone would give him a chance.

“Can you really afford to be worrying about this kid?” Adam asks him a couple of months after Keith’s enrollment, as they wait for him by the bike compound. Shiro’s been taking Keith out into the desert ever since he noticed how much happier Keith is outside of the Garrison’s walls. It’s easier to talk to him, get to understand him with just the wind and the desert and their bikes for company.

It’s the same thing everyone else has asked Shiro since he pushed for Keith to be admitted, despite the string of incidents and altercations comprising his permanent record.

“I want to help. I have to. His previous school, his foster family, they all just . . . gave up on him.” Shiro rolls up his sleeves and keeps working, even though his fingers are so numb he can hardly feel the wrench, no matter how hard he clenches his hand. “I . . . know how it feels. A kid shouldn’t have to go through that. Not alone.”

Adam slides an arm around his waist. He smells good, like the cologne Shiro got him for his birthday. “I just wish you’d worry more about your own problems right now,” he murmurs, pulling Shiro in close, “instead of trying to fix other people’s.”

Shiro doesn’t want to help Keith because he’s given up on himself. He just knows how it feels to struggle alone. “I asked him to join the Garrison,” he says, holding back a swear when he drops the wrench. “I won’t give up on him now. Not when he needs me.”

“Hey, I’m not trying to make you mad.” Adam stoops, picks up the wrench, and presses it back in Shiro’s hand.

“I know,” Shiro sighs, because Adam does have a point. Even though he’s been grounded for months, recruiting has been exhausting in its own way, and now he has classes to worry about teaching. If he can’t even manage this workload, he may never fly again.

He can tell that Keith has slowly begun to trust him. All he needs is someone who can make him feel normal, without pretending his problems don’t exist. It was what Shiro needed. It was what Adam did for him.

One night as he lies awake, listening to Adam mumble in his sleep, he thinks wistfully that once he’s unable to go into space anymore, maybe he’d be okay with continuing to teach for however long he’s able. 

He doesn’t actually believe it. He just wonders if maybe it’s time to do what everyone says he should, and start thinking practically. Realistically. Because they think he isn’t capable of what he knows he is.

Then he trips just trying to get out of bed later that week, and drops his plate at breakfast in the mess hall. He can’t hold his hands steady enough to hold a stylus or use the computer. He can’t stand up long enough to teach any of his classes. He has to take a few days off work under pretense of a cold, because the golden boy of the Galaxy Garrison can’t be seen walking around with a cane. Adam helps him walk to physical therapy for a while.

“Takashi,” he says, cupping Shiro’s face after helping him undress one night. “Hey. It’ll be okay.”

“I keep telling myself that,” Shiro replies quietly, turning away when Adam tries to kiss him.

  


\-----

  


“I won’t go through this again.”

Shiro knew before he sat down that this would be the last time he and Adam would have this argument. It’s been two years since the Metis mission, one year since he was cleared to fly planes, and it’s not enough. Shiro misses space. The Kerberos mission is his last chance to be free.

“Don’t expect me to be here when you get back,” is far from the worst thing he and Adam have said to each other in the past few months. It still cuts deep,

After Adam leaves for class, he stays on the couch, listening to their little antique wall clock tick, tick, tick the next hour away. He doesn’t know what to do now. Pack up his stuff and move out? How can he, when everything in their dorm, everything in their shared life, is intertwined with each other? With all the promises they made about loving each other in sickness or in health? 

He falls asleep on the couch and wakes up the next morning to an apartment empty of the shelter and support it’s provided him through the worst episodes of his condition. Crushed by loneliness, he leaves his messenger bag where he tossed it aside the night before and heads to the bike compound.

  


\------

  


“How come you didn't tell me?” Keith asks as they watch the sunset from the cliffs, not angry like he was earlier. Now he sounds scared. As much as he’s grown in the past two years, in some ways he still reminds Shiro of the wary, defensive kid who stole his car. His voice goes small. “Don’t you trust me?”

“I haven’t told a lot of people about my condition, Keith. I . . . I thought it would be better that way.”

“Why?”

_Because I wanted to protect you_ , he thinks. Looking at Keith now, hugging his knees and tilting his head down so his long hair hides his face, Shiro is painfully aware of how much that has backfired.

“Because . . . I was afraid,” he says, rolling his helmet over in his hands. “I trust you, Keith.” He swallows the lump rising in his throat. “And I’m sorry if all this makes you feel like you can’t trust me.”

Keith seems bolstered by his confession. He lifts his head, and his eyes are round and shining as he says, “I’ve never doubted you, Shiro. I lo--” He swallows hard and looks back at the sunset. “I mean it.”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tell him how you really feel, keith


End file.
